


The Brotherhood Takes New York

by JackRose



Series: Avalanche: Evolution [4]
Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: A lot of talking, But It Will be Later, But they kind ofmake sense., Danger Room, Establishing character abilities with litte to no basis in the canon, Gen, Lance and Scott are not actively hateful towards each other, Title Isn't Relevant Yet, Training, Way Too Many Tags, Which seems noteworthy., kind of, plot?, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2018-07-23 17:19:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7472826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackRose/pseuds/JackRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't want to be a hero.  I just want to hurt the bad guys."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

The Brotherhood Takes New York

“I should be down there with them,” Lance grumbled, settling into the control room next to Scott. Below them, in the Danger Room, Freddy crashed through a series of obstacles with blaring red lights on them, while Toad and Pietro ran interference against a parallel set of obstacles shining green. Scott winced as Pietro tied a robotic arm into a knot and Toad slimed it and then kicked it against a wall, leaving it sparking and writhing wildly.

“Remember- Green Targets are avoidance and soft deflection only,” he called over the loudspeaker, before turning to Lance. “I get what you mean, but you’re still healing up after that run in with Sabretooth. Stick with the calisthenics Mr. Logan set for you. Unless you want me to tell him that you’re feeling underworked?”

Lance held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I never said that, Summers.”

Scott’s lips quirked up in a slight smirk. “Besides,” he added, “It’s not a bad idea to get a bird’s eye view of their strengths and weaknesses like this. A leader’s only as good as his understanding of his team.”

“I’m not their leader,” Lance said, a little too quickly. “I mean, I try and look out for them, but it’s not like they do what I say or anything.”

“They came here. To their, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, third voluntary danger room session.”

“Tabby didn’t,” Lance countered. “According to her, she and Jubilee had a, and I quote ‘shopping emergency,’”

“Still,” said Scott. “They look up to you more than you realize. Whether you want to admit it now or not, sooner or later you’re going to have to lead them.”

With all the subtlety his codename implied, Lance changed the subject. “Aren’t you worried that with all this training, we’re going to kick your ass the next time we fight?”

“First, no. We still outnumber you- more once we start rotating the New Mutants in on regular missions. And besides, I’m getting the same bird’s eye view you are, here. If anything, these sessions are giving me a tactical edge.”

Lance shook his head. “You’re looking at that many angles? You really are a piece of work, Summers.”

“And,” added Scott after a moment’s consideration. “I’m hoping that the next time we fight, you’ll have pulled your collective head out of your asshole once and for all, and we’ll be fighting on the same side.”

Lance was silent for a long moment, considering that. “Did the King of the Boy Scouts just swear at me?” He finally asked.

“Cameras in the control room are off, you’ll never prove it,” said Scott, keying the intercom. “Okay, I’m going to reset the course. This time I’m adding gold obstacles- those are must destroys.”

There was a groan from the boys, who had only just reached the end of the course.

“Beat your best time on this one, and we’ll break for lunch. Beast is putting on quite a spread.”

That was enough to motivate the boys, who rallied for another run of the obstacle course.

***

“You think he’ll be doing that molecular gassy food again?” Fred asked, buttoning his overalls before he stepped out of the shower stall.

Pietro, who had been dressed for what felt like hours, and was combing his hair into perhaps the thousandth, nigh-indistinguishable style, glanced at Fred with some irritation. “Molecular Gastronomy,” he said. “How I live with you uncultured…” he disappeared from the room, then reappeared within the course of a second. “No. Looks like sandwiches.”

“Good,” said Fred happily. “That stuff was tasty, but the portions were way too small.”

“Cretin,” sighed Pietro, rolling his eyes

“For a blue Bigfoot, he cooks pretty good,” said Todd, idly picking the lock on one of the lockers. “Hey, who am I?” He reached out with his tongue, snatching one of Scott’s spare visors from the locker and donning it.

“Toadclops?” Suggested Fred.

“Cycload,” argued Pietro.

“That just sounds like a load of Sikes,” complained Fred.

“Yo, what the hell is a sike?” Todd asked from the top of a row of lockers.

“Oh for- Toad!” Lance said, entering the locker room “We talked about this. There’s a time and a place for ripping off the X-geeks, and this isn’t it.”

“I wasn’t gonna keep it or nothing,” grumbled Todd defensively, tossing the visor back into the locker.

Lance rolled his eyes. “Those were both terrible names anyways,” he said, and gave a dramatic pause as the others stared at him. “The One-Eyed Wart.”

That got him pelted with work-out socks. “That’s it,” he said, “You guys are in for it now!” The locker room shook slightly, but was almost drowned out by the sound of Fred’s stomach rumbling.

“Can we finish this after lunch? While there’s still some food left?” Todd asked. “Those New Mutant kids are like locusts.” His stomach rumbled in turn. “Heh. Been a while since I had a locust,” he added, grinning sheepishly.

“Go ahead,” said Lance. “Mr. Logan wants to see me before I eat anyways. He says,” he lowered his voice to a bass growl in imitation of the older mutant, “‘If you’re stuffing your face on the professor’s dime, least you can do is work up an honest appetite first.’”

“Ouch, workouts with that can of sunshine?” Said Pietro. “Better you than me. Bye!” And he was gone.

“Yo, wait up!” Called out Todd, hopping after him, followed by a lumbering Fred. Lance shook his head, unable to keep himself from smiling as he pulled off his shirt. The bruises on his ribs had faded from a near-black to a sickly yellow. He wasn’t sure it looked any better, but it didn’t hurt to draw breath any more. Not before the workout, anyways.

***

Upstairs, Beast had made a hasty retreat after depositing several towering platters of sandwiches. The New Mutants, fresh from one of Logan’s survival training lessons, were in a full feeding frenzy. As the Brotherhood had learned the first time they dined here, when they were like this they were no respecters of the boundaries of plate or place setting. They had adapted quickly- the rules weren’t much different than pizza night at the Brotherhood House. 

Fred had cleared a place for himself at the table through sheer bulk, and jealously guarded that platter of sandwiches he had claimed for his own. Pietro had simply eaten as much food as he wanted while everyone else was still reaching for their first sandwich, and now reclined, his chair tipped back and his feet up at the table, occasionally flitting out of it when the row around him threatened to tip him over.

Todd, meanwhile, had taken a few sandwiches and retreated to the chandelier in the living room, where he was reasonably safe from the depredations of the other hungry teens. He was enjoying a watercress and bacon sandwich when their was a sudden outrush of air and the smell of sulfur.

“Jesus shitting Christ, furball,” he grumbled around a mouthful of sandwich, adjusting his balance as the chandelier swung under the sudden addition of Kurt’s weight, and enjoying the look on Kurt’s face at his casual profanity. “I coulda choked.”

Kurt took a moment to school his expression. “My apologies. I wondered if we could take this opportunity to have a little talk.”

Todd swallowed. “Why?” He asked. “We ain’t ever exactly been talking buddies.”

“Ja. I know.” Kurt said. “That is what I wanted to talk about.”

“If you’re looking for someone to help you lift Scott’s keys so you can go joyriding, try Pryde. She’s got lighter fingers than you’d think, the way she drives. Besides, Lance says your guys’ stuff is off limits while we’re here.”

“Wha- no! I’m not asking you to do me a favor.”

“Then what?”

“I do not like you, Todd Tolansky. You are a thief, and you have made a long string of poor life choices.”

“Yeah,” snapped Todd, “Thanks for the chat.” He tensed his legs to jump off the chandelier.

“Wait! I am saying this is all wrong! Let me try again. I have treated you poorly.”

Todd paused. “I’m listening,” he allowed.

“When I came to the States, Scott and Jean, the Professor, they were the first friends I made. You were the first enemy.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t exactly head over heels for you either. So what?”

“So, we are supposed to love our enemies, aren’t we? And yet, here we are, almost six years later. You are no longer working for Magneto. You helped us save the world from Apocalypse, and I have been judging you as if you were still the little thief who broke into the mansion all those years ago.”

Todd stared at him. “Listen, fuzzball, I don’t think we’ve said ten words to each other in the last couple years. Why the hell would I care what you think? Why would you care if I did?”

“It is not that simple,” Kurt maintained. “Whether you were conscious of it or not, I have wronged you by my assumptions.”

“Man, even by X-geek standards you’re a goody-two-shoes, huh?” Todd asked. “Fine. You screwed up. You wanna make it up to me? I could use a new pair of shoes.”

“Shoes?” Said Kurt, crinkling his brow.

“You heard me. What, you think they make shoes thinking someone’s gonna be hopping around in them all day? Plus, my feet ain’t exactly a normal shape.”

Kurt nodded. “Ja, I understand that problem. I will speak to the Professor. He designs all of our uniforms. I’m sure he could come up with something for you.” He disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“Yo, I meant buy me a pair of sneakers and some new tissue paper to stuff ‘em with! No need to get Baldy involved!” Todd called after him. “Ah, who am I talking to? He’s gone.” He settled in to enjoy his last sandwich.

***

When Lance reached the practice field, he was surprised to see Sam Guthrie, the southern mutant, waiting with Logan.

“Am I early or something?”

“Nope,” said Logan.

“Hey,” said Sam, ducking his head in greeting. He extended his hand. “Mr. Logan asked me to come out and spar with you some. Sorry again about that thing with the joyrides.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Lance. “I told ‘Berto we were cool after he got Kitty and me those Lila Cheney tickets.”

“Glad to hear it,” growled Logan. “So no reason to go easy on him, Sam.”

“Mr. McCoy said he still wasn’t at a hundred percent,” Sam protested.

“What’s that got to do with anything? You think Sabretooth’s gonna care if one of you is feeling under the weather? Or Magneto? Or hell, Fury, if it comes to that?”

“I’m good,” Lance said. “Worry about yourself, Sam.”

“Suit yourself,” shrugged Sam. “Powers?”

“Nah,” said Logan. “You depend on them a little too much, Sam. This’ll be a lesson for you, too.”

Lance considered his options as Sam dropped into a slight crouch, raising his fists. He hadn’t been in a fight without his powers- not counting roughhousing with the boys- since he’d left high school. Back then, especially before he came to Bayville, there had been a couple kinds of fights. Ones where you wanted to impress someone, make sure everyone knew you were a badass, and ones where that hadn’t been enough and you had to hurt someone as much as you could, as quick as you could, before they had a chance to do the same thing to you.

Neither seemed entirely appropriate here, so for the moment, he just circled Sam, getting an idea of him. Sam was taller than Lance, but lanky, perhaps even a little lighter. On the other hand, given the conditioning Logan subjected his students to, there was bound to be strength in those long limbs. He looked like he was ready to box.

So Lance rushed him. He took a right cross as Sam stepped into his charge, hitting him right on the largest bruise on his ribs. He’d have sworn if he could spare the breath, but then he was inside Sam’s reach, driving several quick jabs at his solar plexus.

Sam twisted, taking the blows on his side instead, and Lance threw an arm around his neck, pulling him down and driving his fist into Sam’s side, between his hip and his ribs, then raising his knee into Sam’s chest.

Sam hooked a foot behind Lance’s ankle and pulled him off balance, at the same time ducking and pulling his head out of Lance’s grip. Lance hit the ground, and Sam paused for a moment to take a breath.

It was a serious mistake. Lance was already rolling to his feet, driving his shoulder up into Sam’s midsection, lifting the younger boy almost off his feet, before slamming back to the ground with Sam beneath him. Unlike Sam, he took full advantage of having his opponent off his feet, driving a knee hard into Sam’s stomach, and grabbing his throat.

“All right,” growled Logan, grabbing the back of Lance’s shirt and pulling him off of Sam. “That’s enough.”

Lance lashed out backwards, without thinking, and was rewarded with the contact of his knuckles against Logan’s adamantium cheekbones. This time he did spare the breath to swear, cradling his hand.

Logan grabbed it, manipulating the digits. “You’re fine,” he pronounced. “It’ll be sore, but it’s not broken. Maybe that’ll teach you to stay aware of your surroundings.”

Lance pulled his hand away, and then extended the other hand to Sam, who gratefully used it to climb to his feet. “You all right?” Lance asked.

“Hell, I had worse wrassling with my brothers back home,” Sam said, between gulps of air. “You’re gonna have to show me how you rolled back up so quickly, though.”

“Later,” Logan said. “Hit the showers, Guthrie, then go get some lunch.” Sam nodded gratefully and took off towards the mansion, slowly at first as he finished catching his breath, then leaping into the air with a whoop and activating his power.

“We’re gonna need another wall,” Logan groaned under his breath.

“So,” said Lance, “How’d I do?”

“Maybe you’re not completely hopeless,” Logan allowed. “You’ve been around the block once or twice?”

“Yeah,” said Lance.

“So you learned some stuff the hard way. That’s worth something. So’s the fact that you’re not afraid to take a hit. Doesn’t mean someone who really knows what they’re doing won’t take you apart.”

“Why are you doing this, anyway?” Lance asked. “I mean, Summers I get- he figures on me like feeding a stray dog or something. What’s your angle?”

“Half-pint cares about you,” Logan replied. “Can’t much figure that one- she’s supposed to be smart. But I see the way she looks at you. It’d tear her up inside if Sabretooth got his claws in you. So if this keeps you alive long enough for her to realize she can do better, I don’t mind kicking your ass around the grounds once a week. Speaking of…” he nodded at the obstacle course, on the far end of the practice field. "Convince me I'm not wasting my time."

Lance groaned, and took off running.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two:

“All the federales say,  
They could have had him any day  
They only let him slip away,  
Out of kindness I suppose.”

Lance stopped singing as he saw Tabby’s head poke over the side of the roof, though he kept idly strumming his guitar. Tabby climbed the rest of the way onto the roof, and then reached down to pull a cooler up after her.

“You know,” she said, “When it comes to singing, you’re a halfway decent guitarist.”

“Thanks,” said Lance, absently, and then, “Hey!” Tabby grinned and blew him a kiss.

“You’d better have beer in that cooler,” Lance said, carefully cradling his guitar in a nook of the roof.

“Or what?” Tabby asked, and then yelped and clutched at Lance’s arm as the steeply pitched roof bucked under her. “Okay, you win, asshole.” She pulled a bottle from the cooler and handed it to Lance, the cap already off. Lance almost took a swig from it, and then, considering everything he knew about Tabby, held it away from him just before it erupted in a shower of beer.

“Worth a shot,” Tabby shrugged, handing him an unopened beer. “Truce?”

“Short term truce,” Lance allowed. “I don’t want to drop my guitar.” He cautiously opened the beer. “So, you get that shopping emergency sorted out?”

“Yeah,” said Tabby. “At least until next week.”

“You know, I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to try and make you do this if you didn’t want to.”

“Ha! Like you could if you tried.” Tabby took a long swig of beer. “You remember when things were simple?”

“When the hell was that?” Lance asked.

“You know, when it was just the five of us against the X-geeks. After I figured out I belonged here, but before Mystique came back.”

“Oh, yeah. Us against the world, the city cutting off the water or the power every other week, slugging it out with Scott and them about that often, living off stolen Ramen and school free lunches?”

“Yeah. You ever miss it?”

“Every day. I don’t miss fighting with Kitty all the time, though. Or getting our asses kicked on a regular basis.”

“We gave as good as we got. A couple times. Almost.”

“I don’t miss showering at the school, either.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because you had to shower with the guys. I had the girls’ locker room all to myself in the morning. It was fucking luxurious.”

“Well, if you’d invited me to join you, I might have had a different perspective.”

“Hah! Like you’d have taken me up on that. When you weren’t mooning over Kitty, you were swearing off all women forever because she’d dumped you. That’s what I’m not going to miss.”

“Things are pretty great with Kitty right now,” Lance said, indulging in a sappy grin. “But what’s got you all nostalgic?”

“It was just nice to know what people expected, so we could tell them to go screw themselves. I feel like kicking out against something, doing some damage. Skipping out on totally voluntary training with the X-geeks just isn’t cutting it.”

“I get that,” Lance admitted. “After Sabretooth-” he shuddered despite himself, “I could stand to kick some ass myself.”

“Anyway,” said Tabby, scooting to the side of the roof, “I’ll leave you to your warbling. Fred’s making red sauce, so I’m gonna go get even with him for dumping my bed in that mud puddle last week.”

“Leave some for dinner!” Lance called out after her, knowing it was hopeless, then leaned back against the roof and began idly picking at his guitar again with a slight grin.  
***  
Todd’s head was under his bed, closing in on an especially juicy looking beetle, when a loud BAMF of air behind him made him jerk upright, and crack his head on the bed. “Cloaca licking son of a cockmongler!” he cursed, pulling his head out and glaring at Kurt. Then, despite himself, he had to chuckle at the expression his curses had drawn from the X-man. “Yo, my house, fuzzball,” he said. “I don’t gotta censor myself.”

“I hadn’t realized that you had been,” Kurt replied, uncertain whether to take offense or burst out laughing.

“Yeah, well there’s a lot you don’t know. Like, f’r instance, knocking. I thought you X-geeks were supposed to be the polite ones.”

“My apologies,” Kurt said, lifting a small bag. “I wasn’t sure if I would be welcome here, and I thought it best just to drop these off and be on my way.”

Todd squinted at the bag, and then his tongue shot out, snaring it and pulling it back to him. He tore it open and looked inside. “Hey!” He said, pulling out a pair of shoes- unusually long and narrow ones, which flared out at the toe. “Nice!”

He sat on the bed, shucking his own shoes and socks, and pulling the new ones on. “Not bad,” he said, standing up and bouncing lightly in them, before leaping to the corner of the ceiling, planting his feet against perpendicular walls while his hands stuck to the ceiling. “Not bad at all.” He dropped back to the ground. “So, we cool? You’re not going to be coming around guilting at me anymore?”

“We are cool,” Kurt agreed. “Although I did not do very much. The professor had already designed the boots.”

“That’s a little creepy, right? Baldy playing dress up games with us?” Todd leapt from the floor to the wall, and then the opposite wall. “Still, don’t look under a gift horse's tail, right?”

“Not quite how the saying goes, I think, but I understand the sentiment,” Kurt smiled, before his eyes fell on the complicated accumulation of equipment- mostly speakers, but with several dials and switches, and wires sticking out in seemingly random patterns- beneath Todd. “What is that?”

“You like it?” Todd said, obviously quickly warming to his subject. “My sound system. Pretty hot, isn’t she?” He dropped off the wall, and ran a hand over a speaker. “‘Course, the wiring in this place is so old I can’t run the whole thing without blowing every fuse in the house. Still, even at half power, this baby is so sweet…” he took in Kurt’s expression, once more torn, this time between enthusiastic admiration and guilty doubt. “Yo, it ain’t stolen.”

“I didn’t…”

“You think I’m stupid or something? You don’t steal electronics for yourself. That shit has serial numbers all over it. You sell it to a guy who has a buddy out of town- out of state is even better. Or if you’re real hard up for cash, you hit a no questions pawn shop, but that’s kinda risky when you got a beautiful face like mine. Nine times outta ten, those guys will roll over if the cops lean on them.”

His explanation obviously hadn’t particularly reassured Kurt. “I built it, fuzzball.” The fact that he had built it out of parts that were either too small for electronics stores to bother trying to track them down when they vanished, or that he had bought with stolen money was, he considered, not any of Kurt’s business.

“It is impressive,” Kurt allowed, and then got distracted as he spotted the long boxes full of vinyls. “What do you have here? Zeppelin, Floyd, Lila Cheney… oh!” He straightened up, holding an album cradled in his arms. “Is this really?”

“Nazgûl’s first single? Damn straight. You think this is something, you shoulda seen the collection I had before Mystique ditched us and we had to pawn most of it to keep the heat on.”

Kurt’s face darkened at the mention of his mother. “Hey, I’m not saying anything tyou don’t already know,” Todd said defensively, then, as much to change the subject as anything added, “You wanna give that album a spin, or keep hugging it like it was your date for your first slow dance?”

“Could we?” Kurt’s eyes lit up. “Listen to it, I mean. Not dance.”

Todd laughed. “Yeah. Sure. Just let me…” he leaned forward, fiddling with several wires, then leaping back, almost into Kurt’s arms, as the system sparked violently. “Never quite got around to putting a power switch on it,” Todd explained, taking the record and setting it on the turntable, then adjusting several dials before touching another two wires together.

The opening chords of “Black Song of Orthanc,” began playing, tinnily, from a single speaker. Todd grunted in irritation, and leaned back into the system, crossing a few more wires. Several more speakers came to life, dramatically improving the sound.

“I did not know you were so handy with electronics,” Kurt said, when the music had faded away, and Todd was carefully returning the system to its resting state.

“Yeah, well, when you’re elbows deep in a car’s stereo system in an underground parking garage, and the owner gets off work early, you learn quick,” Todd said with a shrug. “Plus, you know, alarms systems and shit.”

“You know, I’m sure Doctor McCoy would give you some pointers, if you wanted. He is a real whiz at this stuff.”

“Thank but no thanks,” said Todd. “Busting up your murder room is one thing.”

“Danger room,” interrupted Kurt.

“But that don’t mean that I want to sign up for more school, you got me?”

“But you could really do something with this,” Kurt protested. “Don’t you ever want something more out life?”

“What, like being a do-gooder type like you guys? We tried that once- didn’t really work out.”

“You mean when you ran around stopping disasters that you had caused? To be fair, you weren’t trying to be do-gooders. You were trying to look like do-gooders. I’m talking about changing the way you look at the world, not the way the world looks at you.”

“Pretty smart. You get that off a fortune cookie or something?”

“Let me put it this way. The last ten years of your life, if you could do them over again, would you do everything the same? Not based on any new knowledge you have, just how you feel about your decisions looking back at them.”

“I never said I was perfect. Of course there’s stuff I’d do differently,” Todd said, shifting uncomfortably.

“So. Ten years in the future, when you look back at now, what do you think you will wish you had done differently?”

“Man, what kind of question is that? Are you stoned right now?”

“I’m not-”

“Do you want to be? You haven’t lived until you’ve listened to Cheney while smoking up.”

“I should go,” Kurt said. “But think about what I said.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever fuzzball.” Todd opened his mouth and drew in breath to say something further, only to cough as he received a lungful of sulfury smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The song Lance is singing at the beginning here is "Pancho and Lefty," originally by Towne Van Zandt)


	3. Interlude

    _This is the house that pain built._

 

_This is the mutant, who’s bound in the dark, in the house that pain built._

 

_This is the jailer, who torments the mutant, who’s bound in the dark, in the house that pain built._

 

    “You know, this kills me.  Those eyes of yours, and still you did not see us coming.  Walked right into our arms.”

 

    _This is the giant who pays for the jailer, who torments the mutant, who’s bound in the dark, in the house that pain built._

 

“Mr. Quinn.  I have need of your abilities.

 

    _This is the bag, all full of powder, that fills the vaults of the giant who pays for the jailer, who torments the mutant, who’s bound in the dark, in the house that pain built._

 

“There is no need to be like that, Mr. Quinn.  You only have yourself to blame for your current predicament.  If you had cooperated earlier, Mr. Ranskahov’s attentions would not have been necessary.”

 

    _This is the house that pain built._

 

    “I would prefer a more comfortable working arrangement.  The rewards for those in my organization are not insignificant.”

 

    _This is the house that pain built_.

 

    “But believe, Mr. Quinn, one way or another, I will have your cooperation.”

 

    _These are the molecules contained in the bag, all full of powder, that fills the vaults of the giant who pays for the jailer, who torments the mutant, who’s bound in the dark, in the house that pain built._

 

    “It’s not pure.  It’s close- but there’s something mixed in.  Similar, but not quite the same.  I’m sorry.  I can see it but I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

 

    “As I suspected.  Owlsley has been cutting it with inferior product, again.”

 

    _These are the words that are formed by the lips on the far side of the wall, of the man and the jailer, who torment the mutant who’s bound in the dark, in the house that pain built._

 

“So.  The boy did well.  You think there may be a place for him in the organization proper?”

 

    “The way we have treated that young man?  No- we would never be able to trust him.  In any case, I do not anticipate any further problems from Mr. Owlsley.  Contact your associates in Russia, Mr. Ranskahov.  Tell them that the boy is for sale after all.”

 

    _This is the secret in the mind of the mutant who’s bound in the dark in the house that pain built._

>   
>      _never told you i could see through walls, did i?_


	4. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

    “No,” Kurt said, “I just do not agree.  I think a mind altering substance would only detract from my ability to enjoy Lila Cheney’s best album yet.”

    “That’s some Apollonian bullshit,” Pietro opined from where he lay on an inexpertly patched beanbag chair. 

    “Apolloni- hey, what did I tell you about quoting poets when we’re trying to listen to music?”  Todd paused in fiddling with the sound system- or at least that small subset of it he had transported out to the living room- to fling a dirty sock at Pietro, who easily dodged it, but then paused, unwilling to actually pick it up and move it off the chair. 

    “One, it wasn’t a quotation, it was just a borrowing of useful terminology, two- while Nietzche was a poet, the reference is far more involved with his work as an aesthetic philosopher, third, it’s a stupid rule, fourth,  I’m just saying,” the silver haired speedster went on, casually shoving Kurt out of his chair and throwing himself down in it, “it’s typical of an x-geek to think you have to try and think about this music like it was a homework assignment.  You have to feel it.” 

    “I told you we never shoulda let him get that library card,” Todd groused.  “But he’s got a point.  You gotta stop trying to explain it to yourself.  Science don’t know everything.”

    “You know, music is like, pretty much all math,” Kitty, curled up next to Lance on the couch, put in.  “It’s actually really interesting.”

    “Lance, can you just kiss her or something?”  Todd said.  “Make her stop trying to ruin things with math?”

    “What’s taking Fred and Tabby so long?”  Pietro complained.  “I should have gone out for the pizza myself.”

    “Yeah, but then Tabby wouldn’t have had an excuse to steal my jeep, and you know she lives for that.” 

    “I mean, consider the lyrics,” Kurt went on.  “On the one hand, she’s talking about space travel and Dyson spheres and stealing planets, but it’s also very personal to her, you know?  I just think that I can appreciate it better with a clear head.”

    “Do you kiss me to make me stop talking?”  Kitty asked Lance.

    “Shit, fuzzface.  I didn’t ask you if you wanted to shoot up on smack,” Todd said.

    “Of course not,” Lance assured Kitty.  “I kiss you because you’ve got the cutest little mouth…”  he leaned in, and Kitty put up a hand between them.

    “I’m serious,” she said.  “I feel like every time I start trying to talk about school, or the X-men, we just start making out.  Do you think I’m, like boring?”

    “Of course not!  It’s just- can we not talk about this right now?”

    “You don’t want to talk?  Color me shocked.”  Kitty said.  She stood up, phasing through Lance as he reached for her hand, and stormed out.

    “I should go after her,” said Kurt, teleporting out.

    “Yo, that works too,” Todd said.

    Pietro chuckled.

    “What’s so funny?”  Lance asked between clenched teeth.

    “They already put in money for pizza.  Suckers!”

***

    “Are you all right?”  Kurt asked.

    Kitty forced a smile.  “It’s like, I don’t know why I’m surprised anymore.  This is what we do, right?  We get in a big fight over something stupid, and we stay mad at each other until one of us gets hurt, and then we’re happy together for like a month.”

    “That…” Kurt chose his words carefully, “Does seem to be the pattern.”

    “Am I kidding myself, Kurt?  Should I just give up?” 

    “I am not sure I am the one to ask,” Kurt said.  “If you had asked me a year ago if I could see us fighting alongside the Brotherhood for the fate of the world, or a week ago if I thought that I would be getting along so well with Toad of all people… you certainly know Lance better than I do.”

    “I guess you’re right.  Can you take me home, Kurt?”

    “Of course.”  He took her arm and the two vanished, moments before Lance’s jeep turned the corner.

***

    “Pizza,” announced Fred, walking into living room.  “Hey, where’d they go?”

    “Lance screwed up again and Kurt and Kitty took off,” said Todd.  “Lance is up in his room.” 

    “Staring at a picture of Kitty all angry-sad, probably,” put in Pietro.

    “Well, anyway, we checked the mail,” Tabby said, throwing a thick stack of magazines at Pietro.  He sat up and began flipping through them eagerly.  “Hey, Todd, who the hell do you still know in the city?”

    Todd tilted his head.  “No one.  Why?”

    Tabby held up an envelope.  “Because someone sent you a letter.”

    “What?”  He grabbed it with his tongue.

    “You’re going to get a paper cut one of these days,” Fred cautioned him.

    “I know what I’m doing,” he muttered, tearing it open.  “Who the hell send letters these days anyways?”  He pulled out several scraps, clearly cut from a newspaper, and ran his eyes over them.  Then, abruptly his expression changed.

    “Lance!” He shouted, hopping from the room.  “Lance I need to talk to you!”


	5. Chapter Four

    “I don’t get it,” Lance said, staring at the clippings.  “What am I supposed to be looking at?  Are you sick or something?”

    “What?  No!”  Todd brandished the clippings, which contained a brief profile of a clinic in New York City catering to street children.  “They’re looking for mutants!”

    Lance took the papers and examined them more closely.  “Beginning to specialize in the treatment of runaway teens undergoing genetic transformation.  Huh.  Good for them, I guess.  You think Baldy’s funding them?”

    “Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Todd, darkly.  “Look at this guy.”  He jabbed the photo, where, behind a group of somber looking doctors and nurses, a bald man with a scar over one eye looked on.  “Look, you know I was in the city for a long time before Mystique found me, right?  I know this guy.  He’s bad news.  He used to run this crew outta Hell’s Kitchen.  They’d grab kids off the street.  If they were runaways- you know, with people still looking for them- they’d ransom them off.  Otherwise, they’d sell them.”

    “You never told me about that,” said Lance, cautiously.  There was a lot about his life before the Brotherhood that Todd didn’t like to talk about- which made him far from unique.  That the Brotherhood was able to live together in relative peace was in no small part due to their forbearance in digging into each other’s histories.

    “Well, they grabbed me once, right?”  It had been an early lesson in Todd’s life- he had taken the kindly priest who offered him a refuge from the cruel New York winter at his word.  By the time he heard the other kids whimpering in the basement, the door was already swinging shut behind him.  “I got away, cause, they weren’t figuring anyone was going to get to this one window up at the top of the wall.  And I… I just never looked back.  They didn’t come after me, cause I guess no one knew shit about mutants back then and they didn’t figure I’d sell for much.  But I never tried to tell the cops or no one.  A couple years later, I heard the gang got busted up, but it wasn’t because of me.”

    “You were a kid,” Lance said, setting a hand on Todd’s shoulder.  “You were scared.  And who would you have told?  You probably already didn’t have the best record with the cops, right?  And hell, city cops- I bet those guys were connected anyways.  You’d’ve just put yourself back in their crosshairs.”

    “Yo, I _know_ that.”  Todd brushed off Lance’s hand and leapt to the wall, then the ceiling.  “But I’m talking about now.  This guy’s out of jail, if he even ever went there, and he’s going to do it all again.”

    “And this time he’s targeting mutant kids.  I hate to say it, but it’s smart.  Find the right kid, the right powers- way more valuable than some scrawny junkie runaway.   No offense.”

    “Heh.  None taken.”

    “So what do we do about it?”  Lance asked.  “Seems like the sort of thing Summers and them would be all over.  Do you want to go tell them about it?  Or… I bet if I call an FBI tipline or something from the phone here, it’ll get kicked up to SHIELD pretty quick.”

    “Nah, man.  I can’t just tell someone about it and walk away, y’know?  I gotta know this time.  I don’t want this to be something I’m gonna regret in ten years.”  He hopped from the ceiling back to the floor, crouching in front of Lance and running a hand through his greasy hair.  “Shit, Lance.  I think I gotta go back to New York.”

***

    Pietro lowered his hand of cards and narrowed his eyes at Tabby.  “Threes,” he said.

    “Fleas,” she countered.

    “Trees,” put in Fred.

    “Three fleas in trees.  Please.  Just like every time I-beat-you-with-ease.”  Fred and Tabby scowled and each handed over a card.  Pietro laid down a set of four threes, and proclaimed “Gin.  Also,” holding up his last remaining card.  “Uno.”

    Tabby smirked and laid a pair of queens atop the twos.  “High card,” she declared.

    It was Pietro’s turn to scowl as he dashed to the deck of cards, tore through it, and returned with the Ace of Spades.  “Hah. What now?”

    “Clubs are reverse double wild,” Fred declared, setting the Two of Clubs down on top of the Ace of Spades.

    “Damn-it.  Forgot-about-that.”  Pietro glanced at Tabby.  “What-have-you-got?”

    “I think he’s got us this time,” Tabby conceded.  “Drink or strip?”

    “Drink,” groaned Pietro.  “If my game is this off tonight, I’m not going to _want_ to remember it.”

    As they both lifted their glasses, Lance reentered the room.  “Hey,” said Tabby.  “Come play- we’re still on Level One.”

    “Another time,” Lance promised.  “Hey, Todd and I are going to hit the road.  Got some shit to take care of in New York.  Anyone want to come?”

    “I will,” said Fred immediately.

    “What’s happening in New York?”  Tabby asked.

    “Some do-gooder bull,” Lance said, shrugging.  “Figure it’ll get me back in Kitty’s good books.”

    “Get you in somewhere, right?”  Tabby said.  “Sorry, Rocky, not really looking to spend my time fixing your love life.”

    “She’s right,” put in Pietro.  “For example, we’re going to go mess with the X-geeks.  Make sure they get the point that we’re not about to sign up for their super secret superhero squad.”

    Lance shook his head.  “You assholes aren’t ever gonna change, huh?”  He turned and stalked out.

***

    “Yo, you said everyone was coming,” Todd said, as Lance climbed into the jeep.  “Where’s Pietro and Tabby.”

    “They said they have better things to do,” Fred said, sitting in the back.

    “But Lance, you said…”

    Lance grinned and held up one finger as he went to turn the key in the ignition.  There was a gust of wind and the key vanished from his hand, only to reappear in the hand of Pietro, who sat on the hood of the car, twirling it around his finger and tsking.

    “You bastard,” he said, shaking his head.  “You were actually going to leave without us.”


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

“Man, I forgot what it feels like to walk down the street and not have anyone stare,” said Fred, tossing his bag on the bed.

“Welcome to the city,” said Todd, “Where everyone saw six things stranger than you before breakfast.”

“Hell of a place you picked to stay,” said Pietro, zipping about the motel room. “Does this place come with an all you can eat roach buffet or something?”

“Well, you’re not gonna find it listed on the amenities,” chuckled Todd. “But hey, they take cash, they don’t ask a lot of questions, and it’s right between this clinic and the neighborhood where these guys used to run their scam.”

Lance settled onto the couch, setting a greasy brown paper bag next to him. He pulled out a Chinese food container. “Man, Bayville Chinese is not going to cut it after this,” he remarked as he passed out the food. “All right, Todd, this is your show. How do you want to play it?”

Todd nodded, bouncing absently from foot to foot as he spoke. “Yo, listen up boys and girl. I grew up around guys like this. The way they operate- they’re careful. They look at all the angles, and if anyone gets close they burn the whole thing to the ground. They won’t have the kids at the clinic- they’ll stash them somewhere else. And if we go in and trash the clinic, we’ll never find them. So, we’re gonna do it Toad-style, right?”  
***  
“I… I need to make an appointment.” Tabby shuffled back and forth on her feet, avoiding eye contact with the receptionist. She was dressed in a ratty hoody and torn jeans.

The receptionist smiled at her. “Of course, honey,” she said. “What seems to be the problem.”

“I… I can’t, oh no, it’s happening!” She flung her hands about wildly, tossing a few small time bombs around the room. It was more than enough to send the receptionist diving for cover. 

She poked her head back up. “I see. Yes, right this was Miss…”

“Smith. But… people call me Meltdown.”

“I can see why. Right this way.”  
***  
“Tabby wasn’t around when we were all playing hero- or when the X-geeks made their star turn. Plus, she cuts a less distinguished figure than Freddy and me.” Todd dusted off his non-existent lapels. “Odds are, unless someone’s expecting her, they’re not going to recognize her right off the bat. She’ll go in, get whatever quack they have in there’s attention, and then Pietro and I can sneak in and snoop around.”  
***  
Todd picked the locks on the filing cabinets while Pietro spun the dial of the safe faster than the human eye could track. “Not much here,” Todd said. “Staff schedules, invoices for band-aids and aspirin…”

“Got it!” Pietro quietly exulted, pulling the safe open and pocketing several banded stacks of cash without thinking about it. “Two books in here- looks like accounts. Probably the official and the unofficial. Whoever’s running this likes to know how their money’s being spent, even if the IRS doesn’t get a look in.”  
***  
“My name is Doctor Ellen Sharpe. You can call me Doc, Ellen, Doctor Sharpe, whatever’s comfortable for you.”

“Th-thanks,” said Tabby, wide-eyed. “Do you think you can help me with my problem?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said the Doctor, gently. “The first thing to realize is that your abilities- your gifts- are not a problem. It’s just a matter of learning to control them. Yours in particular… they could be a greater advantage than you realize. But for the moment…” she picked up a syringe and drew a small amount of clear fluid from a bottle. “I’m going to give you a little something to help you relax.”  
***  
Lance had been nearly dozing in his jeep across the street from the clinic when three distant booms made him sit upright. “That’s Tabby’s SOS,” he said, “I guess that’s it for the ‘doing things quietly,’ plan.”

He and Freddy stepped out of jeep and Lance patted Freddy’s arm. “Let’s go wreck shit.”

Fred grinned and cracked his knuckles. “Damn skippy,” he said.

Lance glanced at him. “Damn skippy?”

Fred shrugged. “Just trying something new,” he said.

Lance shook his head and grinned despite himself. “We’ll work on it,” he promised, breaking into a run across the street, the ground around him already starting to rumble.  
***  
“Drop the book, hands on your heads, and don’t even blink or I will end you,” the receptionist said, leveling a revolver each at Pietro and Todd’s backs. A faint trace of an accent, absent when she was behind the desk, was now clear in her voice.

Todd slowly straightened up, glancing at Pietro. “Yo, so much for doing it Toad style,” he sighed.

“What we get for working with amateurs,” Pietro said equitably. “What do you think- green target?”

“No,” Todd said. “If she’s carrying, she’s at least semi-pro. Go red..”

“Not one more word,” said the receptionist. There was a crash a section of the wall on the other side of the clinic crashed down, and her fingers tightened on the triggers. By the time she pulled them though, both guns were pointing at the ceiling.

Pietro grinned at her and yanked her forward by her wrists, headbutting her. By the time she had processed that, he had spun her around, zip tied her hands behind her back and kicked her legs out from under her.

Spinning the guns around his fingers before unloading them he did at nearly-normal speed. After all, what was the point without an audience.

“Okay,” Todd conceded. “That was pretty cool.”

“Damn straight,” Pietro said, letting the bullets fall to the floor.  
***  
“Left or right?” Fred asked, brushing the cement dust off his shirt.

Lance glanced left, at the three men rounding the corner carrying submachine guns. “Rule of thumb- the more guns are headed your way, the less they want you to go that direction.”

Fred grinned, stepping in front of Lance and cracking his knuckles. “Left. Got it.”

“Try to leave one of them conscious, we’re going to need to ask some questions,” Lance called out.  
***  
Todd kicked open the door, only to find Tabby sitting at ease on a stool, her feet propped up on Doctor Sharpe, who had been roughly hog tied with IV line. “Can you believe she tried to drug me? Like, does that ever work doc? Does anyone see the syringe and not panic?”

The doctor muttered something through the wad of latex gloves shoved in her mouth.

“Probably she usually sticks them before they have a chance to freak out,” said Pietro. “That’s what I would do. You know- if I was a kidnapping scumbag.”

The wall opposite the door crumpled, and Lance and Freddy stepped through. Lance took in the tableau. “You needed to start blowing shit up for that?” He asked.

“She tried to drug me!” Protested Tabby.

Lance sighed. “Todd, what’s our next move?”

“We’re on a clock now,” Todd said. “Someone’s going to have called the boss, and if we don’t wrap this up, everyone involved is going to disappear. We need to figure out where they’re taking the kids they grab.”

Lance nodded, and gestured at the man Fred had slung over his shoulder. “So we ask some questions. Where are they taking the kids, asshole?”

The man spat out a string of Russian. It didn’t sound polite.

Lance sighed. “Anyone speak Russian? No? Okay. You want to try the doctor, Tabby?”

“What, I’m a girl so I’ve got to beat up on the lady doctor? That’s sexist, Lance.”

“Let Pietro do it,” said Todd. “He headbutted the receptionist. I think he broke her nose.”

“She had guns!” Pietro protested. “And you said red target.”

Todd shook his head. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing we can do to her that’s going to scare her more than the mob. Not fast enough anyways.”

“I don’t know,” said Lance, kneeling next to her, “I can be pretty scary.”

“Lance,” said Todd, urgently, “We’re talking hours before everything’s gone. Tops.”

Lance sighed and stood up. “Okay. What else do we have. Did you two find anything?”

“Yeah,” said Pietro urgently. “I was looking through the books, because I figured there had to be some sort of truck or a medical transport van or something they used to move the kids. I mean, you can’t just throw an unconscious mutant in the trunk of a cab or something. And there wasn’t anything. Like- nothing. Like everyone commutes on bikes nothing. So… they have to have some way to get them out of here without anyone noticing. I’m thinking tunnel.”

“Hell, yeah,” said Todd. “Whole city is full of old steam tunnels, abandoned subways- like, more than Bayville, even. I use to duck down in them when I needed to dodge a cop or a loan shark or something. They gotta have a hatch in here somewhere.”

“Okay. That I can work with,” Lance said. He closed his eyes and drew on his power. “Oh… wow. That’s getting easy.” His eyes opened. “Under the exam table. Freddy?”

Freddy spun the heavy table out of the way with one hand, revealing a metal hatch. He ripped it off with the other hand, revealing a narrow stairway. “Um…” he said dubiously, looking down it. “I don’t think I’m going to fit…”

Lance nodded, tapping his foot urgently against the ground. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Take the jeep, get it out of here before the cops get off their asses and show up. God knows what’ll happen if they run the plates.”

“You… want me to drive?” Freddy asked. “Your jeep?”

“Raise more eyebrows if you carry it,” said Lance, throwing him the keys. “Not a scratch, okay?”

Beaming from ear to ear, Freddy took the keys and left via the hole in the wall before Lance could change his mind.

Lance took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “We’re all out of bulletproof human walls, so game faces on everyone. This is where shit gets real.”


	7. Chapter Six

At the end of a long, winding series of tunnels- helpfully marked by flickering lanterns- the Brotherhood paused in front of another metal hatch. Lance set his hand on it and closed his eyes, once more extending his senses to the vibrations travelling throughout the building above.

It gave him an idea of the layout. People were harder- but a scuff of a shoe here, the tap of a foot there…

“Ten, maybe twelve of them,” he said, finally. “Just in the room above us. More in the rest of the building. I think they’re waiting for us.”

“Poor bastards,” quipped Tabby.

Lance grinned, but it turned quickly to a scowl. “There’s something else. The whole building… it’s moving just with the wind. I think it’s about ready to fall down. If we go in and start smashing shit up all over the place…”

“Like we always do,” put in Pietro.

“We’ll bring the whole place down.”

“Probably on purpose,” said Todd. “They figured somebody would roll up to shut them down- Mags or the X-geeks or Lance’s one-eyed secret boyfriend.”

“Wait, is that Cyclops or Fury?” Asked Pietro.

“He said X-geeks already,” shot back Tabby.

“Can we… just until we deal with _the guys with guns waiting to kill us,_ focus?” Lance asked through clenched teeth.

“Yo, what I’m saying- they know this way no one can start through power blasts or whatever around with bringing the roof down. Sorry, Lance, I know how much you love to rock and roll.”

Lance nodded, slowly. “It’s going to be rough,” he said. “Anyone wants to back out before we go up?”

There was a long moment of silence. “I told you,” said Todd. “I ain’t walking away from this again.”

Tabby kicked the ground of the tunnel. “She tried to drug me, Lance. If I hadn’t had a pretty good idea what I was walking into… I could have come here, looking for help if Xavier hadn’t found me. That could have been for real. Let’s shut the bastards down.”

Pietro sighed. “Well, obviously I’m too smart and quick and clever and good looking to ever fall for this sort of trap,” he said. “But someone’s got to take care of you three freaks.”

Lance grinned, with something like real feeling this time, looking around at… okay, he’d say it, but only ever in his own head… his team. “Okay.” He said. “Here’s what we do.”  
***  
Boom-Boom blew the latch and hinges off the hatch with a trio of carefully placed timebombs. Before the echo of the blast off the far wall had hit Avalanche, Quicksilver was through, launching himself up the ladder, grabbing the heavy metal hatch and flinging it, discus style, into one of the waiting gun-thugs.

Then he was among them, disarming about half the dozen men in the room in the time it took the other half to react. He was far from gentle about it- Avalanche had said “Red Targets,” and more than one of them was left with broken bones in their hands, wrists, or ankles.

Then he was gone, moving on to search the rest of the building for the captured mutant children. That had been a tough call- with Blob gone, Quicksilver had the power set best suited to dealing with men with guns- especially without risking collapsing the entire building. But as fast as he was, even he couldn’t dodge a room full of bullets, and even as he was leaving the room, fingers were tightening on triggers.

The key here was that he was already gone, and after his entrance and hard as he was to follow with the naked eye, no one was left looking at the hatch as their bullets punched impotently into a blank wall. Which gave Boom-Boom enough time to pop up and throw two handfuls of time bombs.

They were small ones- more sound and light than actual concussive force, but when they were going off in your face, they were certainly enough to make you flinch and- Avalanche hoped- keep you from doing much in the way of aiming.

He was counting on that, in fact, because as Boom-Boom jumped back down and out of the way, he and Toad were charging through the hatchway. She would be back up in a moment with another volley of time bombs, but each second until that happened held the possibility of someone drawing a bead on him or Toad, or just firing wildly.

For an instant, he thought he was dead, as a cold eyed gun-thug locked gazes with him and raised a machine pistol. Then Toad’s tongue whipped around the man’s wrist, pulling the pistol up to fire into the ceiling- fortunately just as Toad was leaping from it to the wall.

There was no time to think about how close he had just come, though, because another man was about to let loose with a shotgun blast at Toad. Avalanche’s shoulder took him in the chest, and the two tumbled to the ground, Avalanche manning to roll so that the other man fell on top of him, putting the man’s bulk between him and the rest of the guns for a moment.

The man’s reflexes were almost as good- he lashed his head forward, and Avalanche saw stars for a moment. He recovered his senses just in time to tuck his head down and see the knife that had been driving towards his face glance off his helmet. He let out a brief exultant ha- that was for everyone who had made fun of the fruit bowl look- and his fist drove up into the man’s face once, twice, three times, then, while he was stunned, Avalanche shoved the bulk of him off and rose to his feet, thanking god for steel toed boots as he drove his foot into the man’s ribcage.

One man was trying vainly to wipe Toad’s slime out of his eyes- another was on the ground clutching his stomach and retching. That was all Avalanche had time to take in, because there was a gun going off. He thought he had been shot- certainly the impact snapped his head back and left him staggered for a moment, but he didn’t seem to be dead- it had just passed through his helmet.

He stooped and grabbed the shotgun the man he had just tackled had been using, and swung it like a club, feeling something crunch on the other end as the stock caught the man who had almost shot him in the face.

Another round of timebombs went off. He had lived with Boom-Boom on and off for years, and he was _fairly_ certain she wasn’t going to accidentally blow his head off. All the same, it was disorienting as hell. Worse for the gun-thugs, who didn’t have any such insider knowledge.

He swung his makeshift club again, and his target howled as it impacted a kneecap. Then someone already on the ground grabbed Avalanche’s ankle, and he went down again.  
***  
Quicksilver frowned. Room after room was empty- bunk beds with manacles attached, bare bones kitchen, a small armory- currently worryingly depleted by the men fighting his friends downstairs, the building had obviously been fitted out to hold a number of prisoners, and there was no sign that any had been evacuated in a hurry.

Maybe they had shut these guys down before they could actually take any prisoners or maybe it had just been a slow week, either way, what were they supposed to do if there was no one here?

He came to a heavy metal door, locked, with a keypad, that was more like it. “Where’shtelittlefrogboywhenyouneedhim?” He groused to himself, inputting a four digit code at random.

A harsh buzz told him that was incorrect and more importantly, a string of Cyrillic characters and a five showed up, informing him of… something, he’d have to learn Russian one of these days, if they were going to make a habit of this sort of thing which he couldn’t really see why they would- he was here to backup his friends, but they had tried playing heroes before and see how well that had gone?

He put in another code and got the same harsh buzzing and the same message in Cyrillic except that now the five was a four which meant that it was counting the number of wrong attempts he could input before it locked down permanently or exploded or did something else equally dire, and he couldn’t risk that- he could go back down and get Toad who had a way with locks, especially if there was something belonging to someone else behind them and anyways he shouldn’t have left them down there with all the angry men with guns.

“Three-nine-five-seven. That’s the code.” Someone was shouting through the door, must have been about as soon as he got there because that was only a second ago.

He shrugged and put in the code. “Don’tworrywe’reheretohelpwherearetheothers?” He exhaled as he threw open the door.

A scrawny, filthy, bruised boy looked up at him, wide eyed, actually, unbelievably wide-eyed, like, enlarged mutant eyes-wide. “It’s just me,” he said. “There were supposed to be others but the giant said ‘It’s not worth the risk to build inventory.’ Anybody who didn’t have a useful power they sold right away.”

Quicksilver blinked at that, and wondered who he was going to hurt to make himself feel better about hearing that particular sentence, of course there were plenty of candidates downstairs, but he couldn’t just leave the kid.

The kid glanced at the floor. “They need your help,” he said. “I’ll be fine. All the Russians are down there trying to kill your friends.”

Quicksilver flinched at the words, then set his teeth. “I’m not leaving you here,” he said. Forcing himself to speak slowly and intelligibly. “Close your eyes.”

He picked the boy up, wincing again at how light he was, and started running, meaning to go out the front door but it was locked, really quite extensively locked, it might have been welded shut actually, which made sense, because they had only intended people to come in and out of here by secret, probably the building was labeled as condemned on the outside.

Also there were more men with guns running towards the room with the hatch. Pietro closed his eyes and took a moment to gather himself. “Staydown,” he said, depositing the kid behind the heavy frame of the door, and turning to the Russians. “Heyboys,” he said. “Let’sdance.”  
***  
They were going to lose. It didn’t change anything at this point, really. There was no way Avalanche was going to go down any way but fighting, but as yet another group of men rounded the corner, it was getting harder to see any path to a win.

He kicked someone trying to get to their feet, and felt something give way in their ribcage. At least they had bought time for Quicksilver to get the kid. “Toad, go!” He called out, just before a fist impacted his jaw. There was no time to see if Toad had made it- someone was trying to drive a knife between his ribs.

He grabbed their wrist and drove his helmet into the bridge of their nose. They stumbled back a step, lashing out wildly, and he felt a thin line of fire across his stomach. “Oh,” he muttered. “You want to rock? Let’s rock!”

He was ready to call on his power, to bring the room down on the whole murderous pack of them, when the man in front of him was violently pulled backwards, the base of their skull colliding with Toad’s foot.

“Man,” said Toad, spitting theatrically. “These guys do not taste good.”

Lance glanced around- Quicksilver, Toad, and Boom-Boom were standing in front of them, each with the same “I can’t believe we just did that,” expression as they surveyed the room full of unconscious and disabled thugs.

“I thought I told you to get the kid and get out,” he told Quicksilver.

“And I thought I told you not to get all my friends murdered by Russian thugs,” Quicksilver shot back.

“I don’t remember you saying that,” put in Toad.

Quicksilver rolled his eyes. “It was implied.”

“Wait, are you saying we’re you’re friends?” Boom-Boom asked. “Hey, guys, Quicksilver loves us.”

“Don’t get-”

“You looooooove us,” interrupted Toad, throwing his arms around Quicksilver.

“Idiots.” One of the Russians was clambering to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall. “You think you have won anything?”

Avalanche crossed the distance between them and grabbed him by the shoulders, pinning him to the wall. “At last count, we’re the ones left standing.”

“You defeat a few foot soldiers and think the war is done? You have no idea. You are dead. The boy is dead. Everyone you love, dead. You think you are big time heroes? When the storm comes, you will be nothing.”

Avalanche grinned and drew back his fist. “You know, you guys actually helped me figure something out today. I haven’t felt this together in a long while. I don’t _want_ to be a hero…”


	8. Epilogue

“So we’ve concluded that the Jeep is a little crowded with six people,” Pietro said as they spilled out in front of the Brotherhood House.

“Sorry,” said Fred, automatically.

“Hey, kid, wake up,” Tabby said, poking the boy they had rescued. He had conked out almost as soon as they got out of the tunnels, and Lance had shrugged and carried him to the jeep.

He stirred and sat bolt upright, attempting to flinch away from everyone around him- made more difficult by the fact that he was in the middle of the group.

“Hey, give the guy some space,” said Todd, hopping onto the fence.

“Sorry,” the kid said automatically. “Sorry. Habit.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Lance. “Believe me, of everyone you’re likely to meet, we get it.”

“You got me out of there,” the boy said. “Thank you. So much. I don’t… I can’t even.” His voice broke.

“Take it easy,” said Lance. “We were there to break shit. Rescuing you was just a nice bonus.”

“What’s your name?” Asked Fred.

“Peter. Peter Quinn. But people used to call me Peeper. I, uh. I can see really well. That’s my power. Like, microscope, telescope, X-ray good.”

“You can see through shit?” Tabby asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Yeah. I mean no! Not like that! I wouldn’t!”

“Yeah,” deadpanned Todd from the fence. “That’d be almost as bad as blowing a guy up in the shower.”

“You have anyone looking for you back in New York? Or anywhere else?” Lance asked.

“I guess we probably should have figured that out before we drove him out of town,” said Tabby, wryly.

“No. No. I’ve got no one.”

Lance looked at the others. “Well, now you do. Pietro, make up the couch for him, will you? We’ll take you over to Xavier’s in the morning, get McCoy to check you out.”

“I uh… I’ve kinda got a thing about doctors,” Peter said.

“No kidding,” said Tabby. “Don’t worry. Hank’s basically a big teddy bear. Come on, kid, let’s get you something to eat.”

Lance meanwhile, was glancing across the street. “I’ll be right in,” he said. “I’ve got to take care of something.”  
***  
“You did the right thing calling us,” Daisy said, stepping out of the treeline as Lance reached her side of the street. “I mean, not the right thing, which would have been calling us in the first place, but not the least right thing.”

“Does the fact that Fury sent you mean that he’s keeping this off the books?” Lance asked.

“Only your involvement in it. Trust me, we’ll be wrapping up everyone we can prove is involved with this. And those papers you left us will be a big help.”

“I’d hurry if, I were Fury,” Lance said. “I had Pietro run by the X-mansion and give them a copy of everything, too. He said Logan took off almost right away.”

Daisy shook her head. “Just what we need,” she muttered. “Listen. Be careful. It’ll take awhile to round up everyone involved, and in the meantime, you’ve probably made some serious enemies.”

Lance just laughed. “What else is new?”  
***  
“Will you be approaching them directly?”

“Not just yet. I don’t want to show them the strings they’re dancing on unless it’s absolutely necessary” The woman in white smiled as she toyed with the chess piece. “I take it my audition was satisfactory?”

“Fisk’s operations have suffered a substantial setback.” The man across from her, in an antiquated coat and a truly fearsome set of muttonchops smiled back. “His bid for membership will be declined. And it cost you nothing more than a postage stamp. Yes- I believe you are exactly the type of woman we can do business with. Welcome to the Inner Circle, Ms. Frost. Or, should I say, welcome, to our new White Queen?”


End file.
